Of course they aren't. Like the PS3 they will keep working to reduce the o/s footprint through the life of the machine. This can allow extra memory to be free'd up for future games as it was with the PS3. All they do at this point in a consoles life is say to developers this is what you have to work with at present.

If true it's got to be reserved for the game recording and it's likely the same with the xbone.
Ps4 OS is said to be FreeBSD based, the minimum recommended amount of ram for a FreeBSD install is 64 megabytes. Obviously that's without a desktop. With a desktop (and not a lightweight one either), any of the BSD's or any on the GNU/Linux distros, minus cache will idle a little over or below 400 megabytes.
Here's another way of looking at it, my laptop with Gentoo installed on it and with 2 gigs of ram, with kde running, with the compiler running, with FreeBSD running in virtualbox and kde and the compiler running in that, with firefox open and some music playing in vlc, won't fill the ram and it isn't swapping to disk.

We need to see the games running so as to judge or how the ram issue affects games

we don't need to do that. we will never know what affected it or not because it doesn't exist. developers will cut corners and work around it.

we will see the differences more on PC ports but we don't know what it might've been with more RAM. it all depends on how you utilize it. RAM I believe affects open-world games more.

so yea, they'll fit it in the RAM that is available and you guys will never know there was ever a problem. corners will be cut and the case will be made that consoles will always cut corners.

no one will ever think about the context, relativity or proportion in any of these cases and thus the point of ever getting better hardware will be missed. maybe we should just stick to current gen as specs apparently don't matter much.

we don't need to do that. we will never know what affected it or not because it doesn't exist. developers will cut corners and work around it.

we will see the differences more on PC ports but we don't know what it might've been with more RAM. it all depends on how you utilize it. RAM I believe affects open-world games more.

so yea, they'll fit it in the RAM that is available and you guys will never know there was ever a problem. corners will be cut and the case will be made that consoles will always cut corners.

no one will ever think about the context, relativity or proportion in any of these cases and thus the point of ever getting better hardware will be missed. maybe we should just stick to current gen as specs apparently don't matter much.

^^ this

Developers work within the constraints they've got, be that 8GB, 5GB, 100 billion GB - at the end of the day as they get more and more experienced programming for the PS4 they will amaze you what they do with that RAM.

Considering the PS4 uses some beta version of hUMA, that means it uses VMem and System RAM incredibly efficiently. Whatever fuss Leadbetter was hoping to drum up over PS4s use of memory summarily got squashed with that news. I'm sure there are some ignorant masses out there who are trying to drum this up as an issue, but the people in-the-know about the tech itself are having a good laugh.

War is fought for silence. For, it is with silence, you will know that war has ended.

We would like to clear up a misunderstanding regarding our "direct" and "flexible" memory systems. The article states that "flexible" memory is borrowed from the OS, and must be returned when requested - that's not actually the case.

The actual true distinction is that:

"Direct Memory" is memory allocated under the traditional video game model, so the game controls all aspects of its allocation
"Flexible Memory" is memory managed by the PS4 OS on the game's behalf, and allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality. However this memory is 100 per cent the game's memory, and is never used by the OS, and as it is the game's memory it should be easy for every developer to use it.
We have no comment to make on the amount of memory reserved by the system or what it is used for.

good to hear from sony about this

I figured they would fix the errors they made with the PS3's memory. Good to know.

Considering the PS4 uses some beta version of hUMA, that means it uses VMem and System RAM incredibly efficiently. Whatever fuss Leadbetter was hoping to drum up over PS4s use of memory summarily got squashed with that news. I'm sure there are some ignorant masses out there who are trying to drum this up as an issue, but the people in-the-know about the tech itself are having a good laugh.

I imagine Sony is having the best laugh. Killzone devs have said the OS was 3.5GB.

Sony has NEVER issued a statement.

I love that "people in the know" thing... the Killzone devs saying they worked with 4.5GB aren't in the know?

I get the same response on the Gamefaqs board, "we don't need an answer".

Imagine if they said it was going to be 4.5GB or 6.0GB RAM available, you wouldn't need an answer.

Which is baffling. FreeBSD with a fully featured desktop will be perfectly fine with 1 gig of memory. What on earth is eating up 3 and a half?

Possibly nothing. They might be holding it for possible features that will never make it to consumers. But they can't let devs develope games that use 7 GB of ram and then need anoth 1 or 2 GB for some new feature that can be used during games and still have it work with those 7 GB games.

So they reserve extra now and later on once things are more certain for those extra feature they can then see how much ram they use and free up ram for devs.

Originally Posted by Sparc

For goodness sake I hope nobody thinks to start labelling the console an Xbrick,
oops

Note, like i've said, the GDDR5 kills the XBONE but, the small 32MB ESRAM would be good for COMPUTE FUNCTIONS...
Note this passage

"The Xbox One does have some advantages over the PS4 however, with one dev explaining, "Let’s say you are using procedural generation or raytracing via parametric surfaces – that is, using a lot of memory writes and not much texturing or ALU – Xbox One will be likely be faster." "

Not so many games won't have TEXTURING.... so, that was a best example backhanded compliment, but, it means while they are loading things slower from RAM they can hopefully get some things done fast offscreen using some geometry only based operations, though, it means you have to keep shuffling things through that ESRAM, not that you necessarily want to, at least it's there.

Which is baffling. FreeBSD with a fully featured desktop will be perfectly fine with 1 gig of memory. What on earth is eating up 3 and a half?

it's probably just a reservation but we can't compare FreeBSD desktop version with the PS4 version...PS4's OS is highly customized and has several more background tasks running that you normally wouldn't need to be running on a desktop and, say hypothetically that you hack the PS4 OS and you are running those tasks, you won't be sitting at 1GB.

it's probably just a reservation but we can't compare FreeBSD desktop version with the PS4 version...PS4's OS is highly customized and has several more background tasks running that you normally wouldn't need to be running on a desktop and, say hypothetically that you hack the PS4 OS and you are running those tasks, you won't be sitting at 1GB.

Typical pc's run dozens of processes or apps that run as a process such as firewalls and anti-virus. Just because you don't see anything running on the apps tab (assuming windows here) doesn't mean your pc isn't doing anything. I'm running 146 processes on a wimpy netbook.

On boot up, I'm at 110 MB used. Load web, irc, music, network stuff, terminal, I hit about 350 MB. On a desktop, load up 4-5 more apps (media, radio player, podcatcher, etc), I finally hit about 1.4 GB with all of this running simultaneously. Admittedly this is Linux; BSD would be a little tighter. You can get Linux down to just a few MB using tiny core Linux. With all the drivers needed for the hardware. So the question still remains: Why in the heck does Sony need 3 GB when they were initially just going to have 4 GB RAM? Did Sony not have a technology roadmap completed?

Typical pc's run dozens of processes or apps that run as a process such as firewalls and anti-virus. Just because you don't see anything running on the apps tab (assuming windows here) doesn't mean your pc isn't doing anything. I'm running 146 processes on a wimpy netbook.

On boot up, I'm at 110 MB used. Load web, irc, music, network stuff, terminal, I hit about 350 MB. On a desktop, load up 4-5 more apps (media, radio player, podcatcher, etc), I finally hit about 1.4 GB with all of this running simultaneously. Admittedly this is Linux; BSD would be a little tighter. You can get Linux down to just a few MB using tiny core Linux. With all the drivers needed for the hardware. So the question still remains: Why in the heck does Sony need 3 GB when they were initially just going to have 4 GB RAM? Did Sony not have a technology roadmap completed?

when you said 110MB, i was going to say BS but then i read "terminal" so i took a deep breath.

yea i get what you mean. sure. not to mention, PS4 should not need half the stuff desktops OSs do.

but then again, there are things about the PS4 OS that PCs don't need or ever would need to utilize.

think about the instant resume feature for instance, you need to reserve a lot of RAM on any PC for that. not hibernate, instant resume...sort of like sleep mode.

i'm thinking that might be the culprit. also i'm thinking these consoles need to be "fast" from the moment you turn it on so they must have background tasks running that you may not even have started. this generation is going to be all about instant this, instant that...linux is fast but it's not instant...puppy linux is instant and that runs completely from RAM.

it's not insane to have 3GB but it's insane to have that much "needed"...a lot of that might just be caching.

when you said 110MB, i was going to say BS but then i read "terminal" so i took a deep breath.

yea i get what you mean. sure. not to mention, PS4 should not need half the stuff desktops OSs do.

but then again, there are things about the PS4 OS that PCs don't need or ever would need to utilize.

think about the instant resume feature for instance, you need to reserve a lot of RAM on any PC for that. not hibernate, instant resume...sort of like sleep mode.

i'm thinking that might be the culprit. also i'm thinking these consoles need to be "fast" from the moment you turn it on so they must have background tasks running that you may not even have started. this generation is going to be all about instant this, instant that...linux is fast but it's not instant...puppy linux is instant and that runs completely from RAM.

it's not insane to have 3GB but it's insane to have that much "needed"...a lot of that might just be caching.

Yep if high ram useage by the os is indeed true then id blame the instant resume feature ,i think thats gonna need a big chunk of ram ..

Typical pc's run dozens of processes or apps that run as a process such as firewalls and anti-virus. Just because you don't see anything running on the apps tab (assuming windows here) doesn't mean your pc isn't doing anything. I'm running 146 processes on a wimpy netbook.

On boot up, I'm at 110 MB used. Load web, irc, music, network stuff, terminal, I hit about 350 MB. On a desktop, load up 4-5 more apps (media, radio player, podcatcher, etc), I finally hit about 1.4 GB with all of this running simultaneously. Admittedly this is Linux; BSD would be a little tighter. You can get Linux down to just a few MB using tiny core Linux. With all the drivers needed for the hardware. So the question still remains: Why in the heck does Sony need 3 GB when they were initially just going to have 4 GB RAM? Did Sony not have a technology roadmap completed?

What distro are you using? that's a lot more memory usage than I use under similar load.

Originally Posted by Sufi

when you said 110MB, i was going to say BS but then i read "terminal" so i took a deep breath.

yea i get what you mean. sure. not to mention, PS4 should not need half the stuff desktops OSs do.

but then again, there are things about the PS4 OS that PCs don't need or ever would need to utilize.

think about the instant resume feature for instance, you need to reserve a lot of RAM on any PC for that. not hibernate, instant resume...sort of like sleep mode.

i'm thinking that might be the culprit. also i'm thinking these consoles need to be "fast" from the moment you turn it on so they must have background tasks running that you may not even have started. this generation is going to be all about instant this, instant that...linux is fast but it's not instant...puppy linux is instant and that runs completely from RAM.

it's not insane to have 3GB but it's insane to have that much "needed"...a lot of that might just be caching.

Unix's have a similar function called suspend, everything is copied into ram and power is cut to everything but the ram. It's not instantaneous but it's a lot quicker than hibernating. That doesn't require a lot of ram.
Also I'd imagine the ps4's gui is a lot smaller than a fully featured desktop.
I still think it's probably reserved for encoding the gameplay recording.